


through your bones

by orphan_account



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bleeding, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 13:41:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13660176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Archivist.”Jon comes to, head spinning when he tries to sit up, to Michael bent over him and watching him intently. Everything aches, and when he finally manages to get properly sat up and look around he finds that he’s in an alleyway that twists off in different directions at both ends and doesn’t show any signs of being linked to any kind of main street.





	through your bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



“Archivist.”

Jon comes to, head spinning when he tries to sit up, to Michael bent over him and watching him intently. Everything aches, and when he finally manages to get properly sat up and look around he finds that he’s in an alleyway that twists off in different directions at both ends and doesn’t show any signs of being linked to any kind of main street.

He doesn’t know whether to be more concerned about that, or about the fact that he can’t remember how he ended up here or why everything hurts.

“What… what happened?” he asks finally, when the silence has gone on long enough that he suspects Michael isn’t going to talk on its own.

It cocks its head, still watching him, and then offers him a hand up that he doesn’t take, instead flashing a pointed look between its hand, his own burned one, and where it had cut him months ago. The thing doesn’t seem offended, at least, and just laughs as he pulls himself up on his own power. The laugh admittedly doesn’t help much with his spinning head, and he suspects it knows that.

“You tried to take a statement from…” It trails off, looking contemplative. “We’ll call it another limb, and it wasn’t so… _well-inclined_ toward you.” It smiles with too many teeth after it speaks.

“So you… what, saved me?” Jon asks it, suspicious, and it laughs again.

“You could say that.”

No indication of whether it would or whether he _should_ , of course, but Jon has to admit he’d expected that.

“And this place?” He gestures to the alleyway they’re in.

“Nothing to worry about,” Michael tells him, not particularly believable-sounding. “It’s away from the one you angered, and putting you back is no difficulty.”

When it finishes and then makes no move to do or say anything else, Jon hazards, “And… are you going to?”

Instantly the smile is back on its face, with even more teeth to it than the last time.

“I understand a rescue is the sort of thing that might earn _thanks_ ,” it says, smile growing ever-wider until Jon has to look away because his mind isn’t quite equipped for understanding how a face that looks human can hold that much smile and that many teeth and somehow not twist out of shape. “Something owed in return, even. And this isn’t the first time, is it, Archivist?”

Jon swallows hard. “…right, yes. Well, I’m very grateful, yes, but I’d like—”

“I don’t have any use for your words,” Michael interrupts. “That’s not what I want from you.”

Jon knows, somewhere in him, that he’s making (another) mistake when he asks, “What do you want?”

“An Archivist,” Michael says, words sharp-edged and predatory, and surges forward until Jon is pinned up against one of the walls with its fingers scraping grooves into the stonework behind him. “I want to see what I can make you.”

Jon is left reeling as the thing presses him up against the wall and gets up further into his space, until it’s the only thing he can focus his vision on and the only thing he can hear is that horrible scraping on either side of him. It presses a finger to his lips when he tries to speak, brushing brick dust over the skin, and Jon swallows nervously as it leans in too close to focus on and trails something down the side of his face that ought to be a tongue, but leaves a dry, buzzing numbness like static behind where a human tongue would leave wetness.

“The Archivist belongs to the Eye, and you are the Archivist,” Michael is saying now, removing the hand from Jon’s lips and shaking the brick dust from it before starting to slide it underneath the fabric of his t-shirt, laughing sharp enough to make him see stars when the contact makes him jolt enough to cut himself on its fingers. “And yet…”

It trails off then, humming thoughtfully to itself, and if Jon wishes he dared to move enough to reach up and work out whether his nose really is bleeding or if it’s just a feeling, like the after-effects of slamming the back of his head into a wall.

When Michael doesn’t say anything more, Jon does dare to ask, “And yet?”

It makes an odd crooning noise, like it actually enjoys whatever unconscious attempt to compel it Jon might have been employing.

“And yet _you_ do _not_ belong to the Eye,” it says, and then pulls back to consider his face. “At least, not all the way. You could be… stolen.”

Jon swallows sharply and can’t quite tell whether it’s the words or Michael’s hand shifting lower that cause that.

“And that’s— that’s what you’re intending to do?”

Michael croons again, and Jon tastes blood on his teeth at the sound.

“Perhaps,” it tells him, and then there’s a hand sliding between his legs and Jon’s reasonably sure he’s never frozen so still in his entire life. “That depends on _you_ , Archivist.”

Jon doesn’t dare to ask, barely dares to breathe with Michael touching him like this, and after a few moments of his terrified silence it pauses and cocks its head, looking almost confused.

“Aren’t you going to ask another question? That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“It— your hand,” Jon manages to bite out, and Michael blinks slowly at him, hums to itself consideringly, and then slides its hand up and away from him in a slow drag. It curls its fingers at the last moment, slicing thin lines into his thigh that burn with the same static its tongue had left on his face.

When Jon feels like he can breathe again, he looks up at Michael’s expectant gaze and then asks, “What— what do you mean it depends on me?”

Another croon. If Jon didn’t know better, he’d almost suspect the thing was getting off on this, or something like it. If it even _can_ , which isn’t something he’s sure he wants to contemplate in depth.

“Anything can _take_ someone,” it tells him, and it’s pressing in close enough for him to feel the press of its body against his now, feel the odd rippling motions of it as it presses him into the wall so tightly it’s as though it’s trying to climb inside him or absorb him into itself, “Make food of them. But more than that, to _steal_ someone… That takes _more_ , Archivist.”

It stops, waiting with an almost expectant air until he asks, “What does it take?”

Michael hums. “A _choice_ ,” it says eventually.

“A… choice?”

It only laughs now, and the sound makes his head swim, makes the taste of blood on his teeth that much stronger. And then, abruptly, it’s pulling away and just watching him, that same impossibly-wide smile cutting across its face.

“Stay,” it says, “Or run.”

There’s a jolt of fear that runs through Jon at that, some part of him trying to assess every option and stumbling because whatever he is, whatever he’s tied to, it _doesn’t understand Michael_. If he runs it will catch him; if he runs he’ll escape; if he runs he’ll be lost in these alleyways forever. If he stays it will kill him; if he stays it will let him leave; if he stays it will make him its own.

He stands there, paralyzed with fear and indecision, until suddenly it’s surging into his personal space again, fingers screeching against the masonry, and holding its face close to Jon’s in a way that makes him suddenly, unbearably aware of its teeth.

“ _Maybe_ ,” it says, “You need more time to think?”

Jon nods sharply, and when it laughs there so close to his face there’s a ringing in his ear that’s swiftly followed by the sensation of liquid dripping down the side of his jaw - he suspects, or more _knows_ , that when he gets a chance to examine it he’ll find that it’s blood.

Michael unfolds itself away from him, and as it moves back there’s a shift in his perception and he finds, abruptly, that the alleyway ends in a dead end to his left and a quiet but not entirely unpopulated street to his right, rather than the nonsensical twists of before.

“You can leave, Archivist,” it tells him, scraping further grooves into the stone behind him before finally moving back enough to free him. “I will find you.” Its tone is light, but the threat is implicit - or the promise, perhaps, because a threat would need more _intent_ than Michael’s simple declaration of fact. It will find him.

The way it watches him as he leaves the alleyway puts Jon in mind of the worst kind of cousin of a big cat, and some part of him suspects that the slow stalk of it now will be worse for him than a flat chase would ever have been; that it will do more damage, that he ought to fear it more, that the slow and constant presence of it somewhere in the dark behind him will let it win. That it will take him and twist him into something that is-but-isn’t the Archivist. That it will make him something that Sees the Spiral, and that that isn’t something anyone can come back from.

(he’d like to think it’s the Eye’s thirst for knowledge that makes him almost look forward to it)


End file.
